The Perks system in Call of Duty 4 seemed like a cross between a cheap arcade powerup ripoff and a cheap Battlefield 2 ripoff rolled into one giant cheesy ripoff. I wasn’t impressed when Infinity Ward first started gushing about it. Their initial videos and explanations didn’t help my outlook.

But now they either got the hint, or further refined the system, because it actually looks cool. The perks don’t look useless, nor do they seem necessary to succeed. They just add a little color, and specialize your character a bit. They should have waited until it worked like this before talking about it:

Oh, and the pseudo-public beta is supposed to be released today. If you are interested and still haven’t signed up, try the publicity site for COD4 at CharlieOscarDelta.